Dear Atheist,

Welcoming atheists into the discussion?

Which son are we dealing with? I can only rule out the חכם.

_{First, a few important words of caution:}

_{1. It is far beyond little me to permit a discussion with an atheist, even for myself. The atheists themselves are proof positive of how easy it is today to fall away. A few minutes on the internet, reading methodical sights like ACJA ר”ל or listening to a talk from Sam Harris, again ר”ל, without knowing what Judaism is actually about; it is very easy to fall for these views. Dawkins’s God Delusion is two clicks away; Shragy Lowenstein’s books may take a third or fourth click - as much we want to shelter our kids from bad ideas, they now find themselves in many Yiddishe homes ר”ל through the internet, in violation of the prohibition of owning heretical books, אל תשכון באהלך עולה - and if that holds true for just one book, how much more so this monster which is home to hundreds of thousands of bad forums and ideas. And this is just the “אחרי לבבכם” aspect, leaving aside its אחרי עיניכם twin which is destroying lives. (And many of the filters which help for crude pictures and videos still allow basic searches, which is simply not enough to stop the deafening tide of כפירה.) But the scarier thing (to me) is that even for those who try so hard and keep the internet out of their heilige homes, there can always be that one friend and there it all goes, right down the drain ר”ל. We are not safe. It is so easy to find the wrong ideas, and all we can really do at this point is be as protective as possible, while davening to HKBH with all we have left, שמור שארית עם קדוש, Hashem, we beg you, please preserve Your heilige nation!}

_{These kids are generally good kids, and similar to Shragy’s picture of the atheist, I know more than too many who’s only crime was that they weren’t getting satisfactory answers. I’m obviously oversimplifying; they probably were getting satisfactory answers, just not in a language they (cared to) understand, since academic language and ‘beis midrash language’ really are different¹ as we will discuss be’H. So although I don’t actually condone the atheist, I am not at all judging - we have God to do that. I know enough people and their situations to know not to judge.}

_{The problem is that at the end of the day, we can’t deny that we live in the ‘information age,’ and although the ‘lechatchila’ approach - the one that MUST be taken by any frum parent with half a brain (the threat of atheism should scare the living daylights out of them!) - is to shield our young from the confusing ideas, it is just not working for so many. So while we try that first and foremost, what do we do when that fails? What do we do post facto, other than chase these kids out with an אמת הבנין so that they don’t grab any others on their way down? I am cautiously setting out to explain and simplify our side until the point that we can say to them, “אידך פירושא זיל גמור.”}

_{2. Of course, this whole thing is just the shortcut version for the lazy. Anyone who applies himself properly in the beis midrash has a clearer grasp on reality than anyone out there, while those who were lazy in their avodas Hashem, who never took the time and intense brainpower it takes to appreciate a Rashba or a good Vehu Rachum on Monday-Thursday really have no claim against what they so clearly never understood. But I worry that they were possibly never even given the chance; they were exposed to bad ideas too early and it took a hold of their immature senses.}

_{This word “immature” is actually a great addition to this discussion. True Judaism is a very mature concept. The levels of wisdom required is of the nature that a kid couldn’t understand it if you explained it to him, which is why we have a specific curriculum of when to teach what at which age (we hope to get to our beautiful Chinuch system down the line). The atheist (and rationalist) is really just someone who is still wearing his ten year old Judaism on his far more mature body - of course it ain’t fitting! Many atheists (like Dawkins) have conclusively concluded their proud, super-rigid opinions of life at the ripe old age of sixteen years old. And those that are older are no better; they may be older physically, but their understanding of Judaism is still that sixteen year old immature version.}

_{The only real way to learn these ideas is to take the difficult, long journey of learning what the Mesorah is all about internally, to be able to judge Judaism for what it really is. Anyone who has done that, incidentally, has successfully come to the mature truth. My goal essentially, is to summarize in just a few short posts what really takes years of training to appreciate, and I highly doubt the efficacy of such an endeavor. After all is said and done, it is easy to deny what one doesn’t actually know. There’s a reason why no one writes these things, because the atheist has been trained (I’d call it brainwashed) to be all cocky and never allow himself to see past his own nose. But where else will these people ever learn what they are up against if they never were zoche to hear it in their own language?}

_{3. So I will humbly try.}

_{Part of why I will try is because I have a similar view to Shragy in that I understand that he really thinks he is being honest and sincere. Thus, he may not actually be The Second Son; maybe the Third or maybe even the Fourth (though he would probably find that insulting). As we keep stressing, these people have clearly never understood what Judaism is about, and like all atheists do, they have an immature image of Hashem and His Torah; a straw man in the Torah’s place, which they then knock down with ease. (The Christians, whom these atheists consider to be on our side, are often the very straw men- a shallow version of religion, as we hope to discuss in a later post.)}

_{4. All that being said, very few other people should follow in my path and engage head on without the tool of ליצנותא דעבודה זרה because the ideas are very subtle and very, very scary, and people far greater than me who have these matters way more clear than myself still shy away lest it lead them astray. After all, according to one opinion, Yochanan Kohen Gadol went off after eighty years of his great service because he left his נרות מבחוץ, his Neshama to the outside world. Why I am doing this is only for me to know, but here I am.}

_{Last, to clarify one thing: we are not scared of the atheist. We are not scared of Dawkins or Einstein or Sagan or Hume or Paine or Descartes or Jefferson (or even of Aristotle); all of them were arguing against a straw man. As we explore what Judaism actually has to say for itself, something obvious to anyone who actually learns Hashem’s Torah for real, all their silly questions melt away like ice cream in the sun. If the Atheist closes his ears on us, as he very well might (because he is not open-minded) that’s on him. Meanwhile, we will do our part and try.}

_{So dear Atheist, what you can expect of me is that I won’t reject your claims or your life choices. I am not writing anyone off or judging; I don’t think you’re evil, I don’t think you’re stupid (Einstein was on your side!), only ignorant, and perhaps, depending on your situation, lazy. I am willing to explain my side as clearly as possible and respond to questions, but be prepared because I will cast hard doubts on your supposed careful assumptions.}

_{Dear Atheist, if you are willing to be honest, even when things get rough, I am willing to talk. And they will get rough really quickly; starting from my next post on Plato, God willing, we will be wasting no more time with chitchat.}

_{PS - I am writing to the “Jewish Atheist” specifically, assuming basic background of language and elementary concepts, although the same ideas apply to anyone and everyone.}

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7/5/2023 2:07:22 PM, 16 Tammuz 5783

בס”ד

Dear Atheist,

My current blog, which at this point consists of nothing more than a total of like four posts - the last two a seemingly boring examination of Plato’s Republic - is designed to address the movement called ‘Rationalist Judaism.’ Many years ago Dr. Slifkin began an effort to expose that there are two camps within acceptable Judaism, the ‘mystic’ and the ‘rational.’ He wrote some very influential books and authors a successful blog, which are geared toward promoting the ‘rational’ camp. From some of the things he writes it is clear that this allowed him - and possibly many others - to not reject Judaism completely, ever since finding that the mystical camp (which he was very much a part of) was no longer tenable for him.

The reason for my blog, Rationalist Judaism 2.0, is to show that there is a crucial ingredient in Maimonides’s work that is glaringly missing from the discussion, which I am working to slowly expose. I am currently using Plato only as a helper to that end as it well introduces some very crucial ideas into the discussion moving forward. (I am no fan of Plato who is surprisingly as guilty as the prisoners from his own allegory; talk about irony!) This is no minor detail that is being missed; rather, what Dr. Slifkin calls Maimonides’s Judaism is actually almost the exact opposite of what he understands it to be (some more irony)!

But in truth, this idea is so much more than a mere academic rebuttal to Slifkin’s approach. It is also addressing a far bigger issue because, IMHO, even if this Rationalist Judaism approach worked for Dr. Slifkin and a few others, it really falls short in todays climate. To be frank, making Judaism ‘more rational’ answers nothing.

Judaism is simply ‘irrational’ - there is absolutely no way out of that.

In order to be an acceptable believing Jew on the most basic level, we must welcome a whole plethora of ideas that are far from what we would call ‘rational.’ We have to believe that

• the Nile river turned into actual blood for a week

• Moshe hit a rock and water came gushing out (seemingly for thousands or even millions of people)

• a donkey opened its mouth and spoke

• angels (whatever and wherever they are) exist

• heaven and hell exist (somewhere)

• an active, living God exists. And He used to talk to people from time to time

• we survived on heavenly manna for forty years

• people can contract some form of leprosy, and are healed immediately upon rectifying certain sins

• if we serve our God to the max, we can control the weather

We can go on and on. And this is without discussing Chazal’s numerous claims.

Incidentally, these things were all believed by a non-scientific people who were so clearly primitive and silly - how do I know that? Because they believed all of this stuff. And if that’s circular, so be it, we don’t buy it, claim the atheists. Should we accept claims that, when the truth of them finally came under scientific examination, were found wrong after wrong, mistake after mistake? All this, besides for the obvious moral dilemmas like murdering (your clever term) the seven nations, and innocent (also your term) Amalekite women and babies.²

Whether one has the courage to announce this in public or if one would rather hide behind some label of ‘rationality,’ the Jewish people are what modern man would call and ‘irrational’ people.³ Simply being ‘more rational’ is just an unhealthy balance that can end up (and has ended up) leading many way off the mark.

The Spectrum

The way I have it, on the two ends of the Judaism-Atheism spectrum, there is nothing but a balance between our Judaism and our rationality, where the atheists and rationalists are brothers on one side. As much as they want to distinguish themselves from one another, they work hand in hand, and their agreements will often outnumber their disagreements by a lot.

The key point is that there is a spectrum.

Someone like myself lives on the far right of this spectrum. My views are 100% ‘irrational.’ Thus, I have no contradictory beliefs. I believe in the Torah as a divine gift from God, along with the oral Torah which was codified by the Talmud and I back every word it says (though I am still learning its truths more and more). Any questions of rationality that come up work within this framework, wholly and completely.⁴ This really comes from the fact that I don’t think Judaism is at all ‘irrational,’ something I obviously need to slowly explain, and I promise to try in the coming posts.

But there are those who do find their Judaism ‘irrational,’ and with this conflict arises a standing contradiction. Either their rationality or their Judaism must bend. Within this, there is a large range, all the way from the 99% irrational - 1% rational, to every configuration in between, to all the way down to the “mostly rational but I’ll believe what I really, really have to.” At this end of the spectrum, we’ll find those who believe that a corporeal God is acceptable and other such things, which are really just strange ways of saying that we can proudly conserve as much ‘rationality’ as possible. It’s probably safe to say that even these people are still within the pale of acceptable Orthodox Judaism, although at this point things start getting very fuzzy.

But moving beyond this point in the spectrum, all the way to the left, rationality is the complete winner and only player, with ranges of deism and pantheism all the way to the all-too-perfect atheism, which just depends on if your rationality allows for some conception of a God. Some find the design in this world too amazing and compelling, while others have been convinced by evolution otherwise. In all of these, there is no living God who instructs anything at all, and Mitzvah observance, if any, is nothing more than a desire to be part of a safe or wonderful culture. At this extreme left, like in my extreme right, there are no contradictions anymore between Judaism and rationality, because Judaism (along with any conception of religion, spirituality or Godliness) is a non-entity.⁵

Depending on the level that one is ‘uncomfortable’ with the Torah and its values will be the closer that rationalist is to being an atheist. For someone like Dr. Slifkin who, from what I understand, is pretty strong in his beliefs, there isn’t much concern about him personally going off, and the same to all those frum Jews with rationalist bends. However, to those who are weaker in their beliefs, ‘rationalism’ and ‘Rationalist Judaism’ is a nothing but a stepping stone toward religious demise. This makes the whole idea of Rationalist Judaism is extremely dangerous. Eliyahu Hanavi’s cry is highly appropriate:

ויגש אליהו אל כל העם ויאמר עד מתי אתם פסחים על שתי הסעפים אם יהוה האלהים לכו אחריו ואם הבעל לכו אחריו

And Eliyahu drew close to the whole nation, and said, “Until when will you limp between the two ideologies? If Hashem is the true God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”

Because of these tremendous similarities between the rationalist and the atheist, the response to both is really one and the same: as we explore Judaism for what it truly is (i.e., answering the questions above - what angels are, what God is, what prophecy is, what miracles are and so on), the doubts plaguing the rationalist, as well as all of the arguments arming the atheist, will slowly fall away together. As such, I welcome you, dear atheist, into this discussion on rationality.

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The difference between Rationalists and Atheists

But while the rationalists and the atheists are dangerously close, there is a very, very important difference between them as well. The rationalist, if he hasn’t yet fallen off the deep end, still accepts our mesorah as important and real. He accepts the divinity of the Torah and that there used to be prophets of Hashem. At the end of the day, the rationalist is still a believing Jew - which means that he still has plenty of ‘irrational’ beliefs he must confront. We can still work with him to show how his Judaism is, in fact, Rational. There is still hope.

The atheist, on the other hand, who - in his great wisdom - has either decided that the whole tradition is completely bogus, or he pretends like our mesorah is ‘something,’ as a human work in progress which we improve upon in every generation (like Ammiel Hirch’s version of Judaism, ר”ל, for example), has given up his rich history and traditions for his small-minded rationality, and I fear there is little hope.

So dear Atheist, while the response to both the rationalists and the response to you are ultimately the same, you will have a harder time opening your mind up to any ancient wisdom - you already know all there is to know about life. But try we will!

Wishing you well, both physically and spiritually,

המצפה לבנין אריאל בקרוב בימינו ולא נצטער על חילול כבוד מלכותו עוד

דוד™️

1. see my guest post here

2. (That was your oversimplified crash course in Atheism).

3. We will discuss the Vilna Gaon’s insightful addition to this end in a later post, God willing.

4. To be clear, this is not to be confused with actual questions, such as moral or scientific contradictions, which we hope to get to, God willing. All I mean here is in terms of the rationality of it - such as thinking that angels and miracles are actually rational - and that will be the beginning of our coming discussions.

5. Just for the sake of completeness, there is one more group of people; those who may possibly be mildly befuddled by these questions but God didn’t make them the intellectual or worried type. They know that there are those who know better and they trust them. Things make sense to them for the most part and they live with this simplicity. This is a legitimate approach, no question, and these people will hopefully stay sheltered forever.